PLAINSBORO: Children’s Hospital planning to open care center

By Allison Musante, Staff Writer
   PLAINSBORO — A planning and design process has begun to bring the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to the new medical campus on Route 1.
   Founded in 1855 as the first pediatric hospital in the country, CHOP is ranked nationally among the best pediatric hospitals in the country. CHOP staff will operate a pediatric unit at the new hospital, as an expansion of its inpatient pediatric program and neonatal program currently offered at the University Medical Center at Princeton, according to Amy Lambert, senior vice president of CHOP Care Network.
   ”We have an agreement of sale with Princeton Healthcare System,” she said. “It’s hard to project a timetable, but we’re working closely with Princeton Healthcare and the township, and we’re enjoying a collaborative planning process with them.”
   The new facility would also be for children requiring outpatient visits with specialists and serve as a diagnostics center.
   CHOP’s main campus is in the University City section of Philadelphia, but it operates specialty care services in New Brunswick, Voorhees and other areas in New Jersey. Ms. Lambert said CHOP wanted to become part of the medical campus largely because of Plainsboro’s location.
   ”Our goal for our network is to keep children close to their communities,” she said. “This opportunity was ideal to achieve that goal.”
   At the township reorganization meeting on Jan. 4, Mayor Peter Cantu announced that CHOP had expressed interest in joining the site.
   ”The Children’s Hospital is one of the premiere children’s hospitals in the country and it’s important that we carefully consider their interest in coming to Plainsboro,” he said.
   He added that including CHOP to the campus would require modifying the redevelopment plan. CHOP officials would go through the necessary Planning Board process when they submit their official plans for the site.
   Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning, said the new facility would likely occupy space on one of two large land parcels adjacent to the hospital. As approved, the redevelopment plan designates that land for a continuing care retirement community and a general office research complex.
   ”If CHOP comes to us and wants a separate facility and wanted its own parcel, we would have to subdivide the remaining parcels — probably the one designated as the retirement community,” he said.
   Because the redevelopment plan listed all the details of building heights, square footage and roadway access, the redevelopment plan would have to be revised and re-approved to accommodate CHOP. He said from preliminary discussions with CHOP, the structure may be about 100,000 square feet, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
   ”It’s akin to putting a facility like that on the vacant piece of property that doesn’t have the zoning ordinance classification for it,” he said. “We’d have to take that section of the plan, rip it out, and replace it with the new plan and take it through the entire planning process again. It’s essentially starting at square one in terms of that part of the redevelopment plan.”
   Princeton Healthcare System’s new medical center is scheduled to open in early 2012. It will include 636,000 square feet of interior space, 237 patient rooms, operating rooms, an emergency department, and a treatment area.